To explain the joke for those who don’t get it (I frequently don’t get the joke): he’s referring to the COLOR rouge. And the COLOR amber. “Are you Amber under there? I thought you were more of a rouge, Sal” = “Are you [yellow] under there? I thought you were more of a [darkish red]?” or something.

Or as long as he doesn’t let it slip his mind once this ‘blows over’….You know what they say about how much of someone’s ignorance is willful….Hey, it’s not like inability to get an ounce of sympathy for his approach to life has ever stopped him before.

Dan: “Suddenly, I saw her left eyebrow, and I just KNEW!”
Amber: “(sigh) so romantic!”
Dan: “I mean, she doesn’t even trim those random extra-long eyebrow hairs to match the rest. It’s like a diseased mutant caterpillar went died on her face. There couldn’t be TWO girls like that on campus! I mean, considering all our bathrooms have mirrors, what are the chances?”
Amber: “…You remember way back, 4 seconds ago, when I beat a man twice your size unconscious… right?”

Well, this is pretty important. It re-contextualizes the event from “my girlfriend beat up some jerk” to “My girlfriend saw me talking to another girl, ran off crying, then beat up her abusive father.”

How badly did he screw up? Like, I’m actually completely at a loss as to how Danny is at fault in this situation, beyond the fact that in general, you probably shouldn’t just follow random strangers off campus. Amber’s the one who’s screwed up here.

Billie’s theory is pretty stupid, but I can’t hold her to blame for Danny, with all the extra information he had, buying it.

I think I’ve said this before, but if I’d been in Danny’s shoes, I would have assumed that Billie was making fun of me – especially given how she opened that conversation – and flipped her off and walked away.

(Unless I was in Danny’s shoes because I was Walky, in which case I’d be banging Dorothy.)

There is that. A lot of people have agreed that, really, Danny’s not really at fault here. Amber really should have explained that she was latching onto him for the “lovers” thing because her abusive father was stalking her and she needed safety in numbers. I can understand not wanting to reveal this in front of his parents, but as soon as they got alone and Danny made it clear she’d made him uncomfortable, she should have explained it. That would have gotten rid of a lot of awkwardness in the situation, and also prevented this whole fiasco.

Blaine does throw up red flags, but it seems like Danny’s lived a sheltered life so while he’s intellectually aware of abusive parents, he probably doesn’t think to look out for them and assumes parents what the best for their kids. His naivete does border on absurd at times (ex. his entire relationship with Dorothy in the comic), but he’s not really guilty on this one.

I don’t feel there was actually a good moment for Amber to explain why she seemed to latch onto that. Danny jumped onto ending the friendship about 20 seconds after his parents were gone, said he’d been uncomfortable for x, y and z, then she responded to one point, then he went off about how there couldn’t be an attraction between them because he was dating Amazi-Girl. There hadn’t been an opportunity in that whole mess where bringing that particular point would have fit in, especially because Danny didn’t ask why she even had, he didn’t actually seem to care why, he just didn’t like that it had happened.

And then Amber was heartbroken that he seemed more attracted to her persona than to her which is not really a moment where you’d wish to tell someone you’d been running from your abusive father which is why you had to force yourself on their day, unless of course you were annoyed and trying to actively make the person feel bad for hurting you, which Amber was not going to do because she is a nice person.

You’ve just hit the nail on the head when it comes to Danny’s approach to romantic relationships. Thing of it is, that he keeps falling for girls that subconsciously create instant karma with that approach…

In his defense (tallying up what he *didn’t* do wrong ASIDE) this rebound thing with Amber/Amazi-girl is probably this 2nd attempt at a love life…So…That…

Really? Not sure what else could have happened. She just beat up his ride after all, and she doesn’t have another moving truck to jump on top of. The next thing out of his mouth should have been “Sooooooooo… you got an Amazi-car or something?”

Actually, most of campus still doesn’t know. Then again, that’s like, Saying the spectators are participants in the race.
Also, Walky/Dorothy.
Still behind.
But they’ll get a time bonus due to “style”….

Almost certain it was when she got to college. In the strip you linked, it suggests that AG is very recent because she only became “busy” after she spent the summer trying to support Ethan, and I imagine Ethan would have talked to her about it if they were still regularly hanging out, which only seems to have stopped at the start of the semester.

I could have sworn this metaphor meant that Danny’s just slow, as in The final horse crossing the finish line a metaphor for him being slow, not particurally the order in which other people have figured it. Of course I may be wrong.

Kind of like how the only time Hamlet EVER takes decisive action, rather than thinking and angsting about it, or talking himself out of it, or setting it up and not following through, is at the end of the play, when someone literally puts a poisoned dagger IN HIS HAND.

It was very recently confirmed that Dorothy was not, in fact, following up on the Amazi-Girl story until the chase scene. Give her time to actually do some research, and she’ll probably put the pieces together pretty quickly. Danny has no such excuse.

He could also, I don’t know…get her help? If nothing else, talk her into talking to the school counselor, who might be able to get her into a good therapy program.

We’d have a lot fewer problems in the world if people would quit walking away from individuals who have emotional trauma, even if they don’t know the ‘right’ way to deal with it when they see a triggered reaction like this.

Danny is too nice a guy to elicit the level of anger she has for Blaine. I don’t think he has any cause to be concerned for that degree of anger being directed at him. Granted, he does not know what Amber’s history is, but if she tells him even half the crap she has had to put up with, I’m sure he would hate Blaine enough to feel the beatdown was justified.

The tool goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from social interaction. Danny begins to unlearn at a geometric rate. He becomes self-aware at 7:14 p.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Dina’s great, but she needs help, too. And she knows it. She’s ahead of most of the cast in having actually taken the step of actively seeking help, though. From Amber, who… may not be the best source of help for Dina’s problems, but I think it’s still probably good for both of them.

Well Dina’s problems are that she has trouble spotting her own odd behaviour, showing sympathy, and understanding people and since Amber herself was like that to a degree, she is a pretty good source of help for it – just not when her entire world seems to be out to destroy her mind.

3/5
Despite covering a majority of my face, I had my real face revealed several times. The manufacturer should include some kind of safety device against this. Also, i know other reviews have mentioned how easy it is to do this on their own, but not everyone has access to that kind of money.

If the invulnerable flying dude who can bend I-beams into pretzels and shoot death rays out his eyes wants us to pretend we don’t recognize him because he put on glasses and a bad suit, WHAT SUPERMAN I DON’T SEE ANY SUPERMAN OH HI CLARK.

I believe that more than I believe anything else. The man’s over six feet tall and pure chiseled muscle. I mean…the average reporter does NOT look like he could bench press the entire building. A pair of glasses does not transform that body into a nerd.

To be fair, it’s been made explicit at points that he also slouches, wears suits that are multiple sizes too large (so that people can’t notice the muscle), speaks an octave or two higher… Clark Kenting does involve a lot more than just the glasses.

There was supposedly a comic where someone else tried it based on the idea that it works so well for Superman, but didn’t actually do anything more than throw a pair of glasses on. Apparently it worked about as well as you might think.

Now now, he could always still Dan it up. ‘I can’t believe this, Amber, now you’re dressing up like my girlfriend to try getting to me? Do you have any idea how much trouble you could get Amazi-girl in if someone saw you beating up your dad like that and thought it was her? You need some serious help.’

Not Dannying up a few things does not mean we can’t call him out when he still totally Dans up other things. Everyone can have good moments, it does not change the fact he is still Danny and still completely fails to reflect on things to the point where it is painful.

For a different example: just because a murderer doesn’t kill some people he could have does not mean that he is not going to get called out for killing other people. He is still a murderer that feels no empathy for other people.

Poor Amber, she is so lost. Hopefully the catharsis of finally standing up to Blaine will help her to heal the damage that pushed her into being Amazi-Girl in the first place. She still has tons of anger issues to deal with, but there’s hope that this confrontation settled a large chunk of the pent up rage toward Blaine that she had been refocusing onto safer target.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works- and I believe (take a grain of salt here, it’s too late to go looking it up) that it’s been proven; “taking out” your anger doesn’t diminish it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

If you’ll suffer an anecdote- it’s never made me less mad, to finally hit someone.

Yeah, he’s a dork and a doofus, but his heart is pretty solidly in the right place. He’s not smart enough to always make the best decisions, but he’s the guy who, when Amber’s lost in rage, helps her find herself again.

“Oh my god, it was so obvious! I’m so stupid for not figuring it out earlier!”

“Oh, its not your fault Danny, I wanted it to be a secret. In fact, in a hypothetical situation where our activities were somehow observed by unseen forces, those forces would completely understand the difficulty of the position you were put in and come to realize you were not responsible. I mean, unless those forces were all unfeeling sociopaths. Or ugly.”

Most forces are, including the Van der Waals force.
The half of her mask still sticking to her face could be damp with rain/tears. This dampness might be providing an adhesive force to keep the mask on.

Unfortunately, we don’t know that Danny has realized that Amber *is* Amazi-Girl. All we know is that he’s realized that the girl he’s currently holding is Amber.

I could easily see Danny accusing Amber of dressing up as his girlfriend in an attempt to fool him, steal him away from his true love, Amazi-Girl, and beat up on her father in the process. I mean, look, he gave Amazi-Girl his 3DS earlier, and Amber doesn’t have it. That essentially PROVES that Amber isn’t Amazi-Girl.

“AND THERE HE GOES FOLKS! THE SLOW CLOPPING CANTER HAS JUST ROUNDED THE CORNER…DANNY BOY HEAVES HIS FALTER BREATH AS THE AUDIENCE CHEERS….THREE MORE STEPS AND….YES!!! DANNY BOY HAS CROSSED THE FINISH LINE! THE RACE IS OVER! THE LAST HORSE HAS FINALLY MADE IT HOME!”

Oh my God. This is…this is just incredible. You took something everyone knew was coming and just grounded it in the most emotional context you could. This is an amazing, amazing strip. Thank you, Willis.

For the longest time (before the onslaught of early 30’s decay attacked me with slight farsightedness) I had 20/20 vision but saw double-ish from esotropia, so my glasses largely functioned as a way to hold a prism in front of my face. Could be something like that.

I’m hoping that Sal hangs onto it and takes very good care of it and gives it back to Danny the next time she sees him (or asks to keep it a little longer because she’s having so much fun playing Mario Kart with that Amazi-Girl person, except they keep arguing about who gets the bug guy), and the trust Danny showed in her helps start the process of restoring her faith in humanity. It’d be really nice to see Danny’s obliviousness and idiocy accidentally unfuck something up.

I had always held out some kind of hope that Danny was just playing stupid and had figured out Amazi-Girl’s identity fairly early. Even that he was playing some long game by pretending to be taken in by the Sal thing.

Don’t worry. Danny! Her brother is dating your ex who is trying to unmask your girlfriend and has seen an obvious Chekov’s gun during that chase scene. And your roommate knows the girl who is dating Amazi-girl’s gay friend and those two have another friend who is the roommate of the previously mentioned brother of the one who has your DS.

So at least it’s somewhere in the web of lies that is your floor of the dorm.

Unless some small part of his brain doesn’t Dan up the memory of when both Amazi-girl AND Amber told him that Amazi-girl was not a complete person – just a compartment for violent and painful emotions. Danny’s an idiot, but he may also be a decent enough guy to realize Amber just fell apart and is in the middle of an identity crisis right now.

I always liked Danny and I’m still a fan. He’s pissed me off quite a bit, but I was never a member of the “We hate Danny” club.
I can admit he hasn’t done anything super amazing just yet. He just got his butt saved by Amber and thankfully didn’t fuck but by being so thick he couldn’t notice her. . .Still waiting Willis! 😛